LAFAYETTE — Joe Romig’s earliest memories spring from a small farm outside the town of Elsberry, Mo.

“We were very poor,” recalled the future Rhodes Scholar. “I can remember when they would pull the plow with horses, and having no electric lights. I have that background as a kid.”

In that kid was passion bubbling close to the surface, a fierce drive that would one day make him a Colorado legend.

“The story goes that my grandmother sent me out to feed the chickens,” Romig, now 72, said with a wry smile. “So I went in there and the feeder had collapsed. I burst into a torrent of swear words — where I got them, I don’t know — but my grandmother came out clucking like a grandmother will, saying, ‘Joe, God wouldn’t like to hear that.’ And I apparently said, ‘Well, then God can feed his own blankety-blank chickens.’ There was a bit of intensity, you might say. And it was the same in the classroom.”

And on the football field.

“It wasn’t too hard to discern that Joe was something special,” said Tom Hancock, who coached Romig at Lakewood High School. “He was exceptionally smart, and the guy was really, really strong. He had a physical strength that you just couldn’t believe.”

More than that, Romig had an intellectual drive and curiosity that would take him far beyond that chicken pen in Missouri.

“Joe rarely attended an assembly in high school,” Hancock said. “Why? Because he took that hour and he would find a quiet room and go study. He was different, no doubt about it.”

In 1957, Romig, a senior fullback for Lakewood, was honored by The Denver Post as Colorado’s outstanding football player, scholar and citizen. Since 1962, the award has been known as the Gold Helmet Award, but when Romig was honored 56 years ago, he was presented with a bronzed football shoe, co-sponsored by the Thom McAn shoe company.

“I still have it in my office at home,” he said. “I’m very proud of it, but I’ve got to be honest: Having a gold helmet would have been nice.”

Not that Romig is hurting for accolades.

Twice, despite being outweighed by upward of 40 pounds, he won the state high school heavyweight wrestling title.

But it was on the football field where he carved out his special place in University of Colorado history. The 5-foot-10, 195-pound Romig was a two-way terror as a guard/linebacker in the one-platoon era. His No. 67 is one of the three retired jerseys in CU football history. He was a two-time first-team All-American and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1984.

“Joe was very strong and very quick,” recalled CU quarterback Gale Weidner, who led the Buffs to the 1961 Orange Bowl, where they lost to LSU 25-7. “Joe always said he was about 5-10, but I don’t know. He’d say ‘I’m 5-10.’ and we’d say, ‘Umm … OK.’ “

Romig, the scholar, has an undergraduate degree in physics and a doctorate in astrogeophysics from CU. His Rhodes Scholarship helped him earn a master’s in plasma physics from Oxford University in 1965. He attacked academics with the same furor with which he crushed opposing running backs.

Romig’s professional career has been remarkable. From 1971-75, while working on his Ph.D., he worked full time in Martin Marietta’s advanced planetary programs section that launched NASA’s Voyager space missions. For 35 years he taught — off and on — a freshman astronomy class for CU’s Division of Continuing Education.

Since 1980, he’s worked for Ponderosa Associates in Lafayette, using his science skills to investigate causes of fires and explosions and carbon monoxide poisoning in noncriminal cases.

Romig has never been a man to shout about his accomplishments, but he’s fully aware of all he’s accomplished.

In September, Romig and his wife, Barbara, a zoologist and an accomplished artist, attended a gala at the famed Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology at Oxford University.

“We were drinking champagne and listening to ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ — sung in person by (the song’s author) Kris Kristofferson, a fellow Rhodes scholar,” Romig said, smiling at the memory. “That was a nice moment.”

About Romig

Age: 72

High school: Lakewood

Year won: 1957

College: Colorado

Occupation: Physicist

Where is your award? “In my home office. I use it as a bookend.”

Where did you receive the award? “At a high school pep rally. It was nice.”

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